can the "channel" button for the preview screen be set to a new default value
First go to the Video Editing layout:



Now, in my Blender (2.77), this defaults to 0, but find the Channel for the preview here:



Click on the left arrow to change it back to 0.



Now here you have an option, you can either go back to the 3D view (Default), or if you are going to be exclusively video editing, leaving it on the Video Editing layout may be useful.



Go to File -> Save Startup File and click it.  You can also use Ctrl + U.  This can of course be used to save Blender in other states (for instance, having a scene without a cube at the beginning).